Video 14:28
Ancient Seed

The funny sounding South American plant quinoa has been grown for thousands of years, but more recently it's gained a reputation as a nutritional superfood.

Transcript

PIP COURTNEY, PRESENTER: But first - you may not be aware that 2013 is the International Year of Quinoa.

The funny-sounding South American plant has been growing for thousands of years. But more recently it's gained a reputation as a nutritional super food.

The majority of the quinoa sold in Australia is imported, but a Tasmanian couple has found an insatiable domestic market for their organic crop.

While they struggle to meet demand, a plant breeder in Western Australia is working out which varieties grow best and where. So farmers around the country can start growing this ancient grain-like seed.

TITLE: ANCIENT SEED

PIP COURTNEY, REPORTER: Kindred in northwest Tasmania is famous for its chocolate soils. They say you can grow anything in it; which is what attracted Dutch farmers Lauran and Henriette Damen.

LAURAN DAMEN, ORGANIC FARMER: We couldn't afford a full-time farm in Holland, so we looked around and first looked at Canada, but climate wise we would go backwards. And I looked around in Australia and I really liked Tasmania because there's a wide variety of crops you can grow here.

PIP COURTNEY: They bought this 237 hectare farm and decided their future lay not in conventional farming, but organics.

A surprising move given Lauran Damen's former job.

LAURAN DAMEN: When I was still in Holland we had a contracting business and I was a spray contractor. So, I've seen the other side of the world. And I won even, - how do you call that - the Sprayer of the Year Award in 2007.

PIP COURTNEY: The Damen's run cattle and grow poppies, buckwheat, linseed, oats and spelt. But it's quinoa they're known for. When they first started growing it, it wasn't well known. A tiny market confined to health food shops. Growing quinoa was a happy accident.

(Sound of the Damen's looking at their quinoa crop)

LAURAN DAMEN: We got a handful of seed and then we, yes, we just give a try in the paddock and it worked out.

(Sound of quinoa commercial and music)

PIP COURTNEY: Quinoa's not a grain; it's a seed, or pseudo-cereal. Native to South America, the Incas called it the mother grain and it's so nutritious it fuels NASA's astronauts.

(Music playing)

What's broken it out of the health food market and into the mainstream food world is its amino acid profile and protein content.

QUINOA COMMERCIAL: At least 15 per cent of each seed is pure protein. One cup has over eight grams. That's more than an egg, a glass of milk or a serving of beef jerkey. More importantly, Quinoa is one of the few foods so rich in amino acids - vital chemical compounds that help the body convert food into energy, build muscle and strip fat.

Because quinoa has all nine amino acids it qualifies as a complete protein food...

PIP COURTNEY: Whatever its virtues it's the most finicky crop the Damen's have ever grown.

(Talking to the Damen's) What makes it difficult?

LAURAN DAMEN: Ah, big problem is also the weed control and quinoa only grows where it wants to grow.

PIP COURTNEY: As if dealing with the crop's mercurial nature wasn't hard enough, being the country's first commercial growers meant they had to nut out the plant's idiosyncrasies themselves.

LAURAN DAMEN: There was nowhere you could go for advice so we just did, I just did what I think I had to do and, yeah, and it worked out.

You try a bit, you try something and you learn from it and we still do that.

PIP COURTNEY: Do you think you've worked it out now?

LAURAN DAMEN: There's always still some puzzles somewhere.

PIP COURTNEY: They're not sure why it grows well in certain paddocks, but they do know growing it organically makes for a lot of work.

HENRIETTE DAMEN, ORGANIC FARMER: Really hard. It's a lot to keep on top of the weeds and we had a lot of backpackers last 2, 3 years to keep on top of the weeds and if you get behind it's a mess.

LAURAN DAMEN: The labour cost is the biggest cost for the quinoa, and the problem is also that most quinoa gets imported from South America and the labour cost over there is far less than here.

PIP COURTNEY: The Damen's have harvested their sixth crop and can't meet demand. But when they tried to sell their first crop buyers were scarce, as super food status was a few years away.

(Sound of trucks)

LAURAN DAMEN: Tried to convinced people about this product. In the beginning we had to also carry over stock because at the end of the year we hadn't sold yet and we had a new crop already growing.

PIP COURTNEY: When the crop first appeared in Kindred, locals thought the Damen's were growing the weed fat hen.

HENRIETTE DAMEN: Before they wouldn't even know it, we would grow it or what to do with it. And I have lots of people in the street coming up, 'Yes, I did eat it, I did buy a packet.' And I think, 'Oh, that's great'.

PIP COURTNEY: The Damen's sell quinoa seed, but after countless requests for flour, they're considering that next. But, for now, they're selling every bag of quinoa. At a premium too.

Imported quinoa is about $4 a kilo. The Damen's retails for between $9 and $12.

HENRIETTE DAMEN: It's quite a range of people. Restaurants and chefs. The first one took it on was Melbourne, and city people had much more knowledge about quinoa than here in Tasmania.

Here in Tasmania a lot of people had to ask us a few times what this product was and how you pronounce it, how you cook it.

PIP COURTNEY: Would that be the most common question you're asked, how do you say it? How do you pronounce it?

HENRIETTE DAMEN: Yes, how you pronounce it and how you cook it.

(Sound of Dr Jon Clements preparing bowl of quinoa)

PIP COURTNEY: West Australian plant breeder Dr Jon Clements eats quinoa because it's healthy and he likes the taste. He says its reputation as a super astronaut food is actually well deserved.

DR JON CLEMENTS, WA DEPARTURE OF AGRICULTURE: The amino acid profile is what's considered very, very good. It's got what some people consider a perfect amino acid balance. That's great.

But it's also this gluten free status and the very low GI and the good fibre component. It's got a small amount of oil in it, around 5 per cent oil. So, it's actually a really good food that some people call the perfect food.

PIP COURTNEY: He's been researching quinoa for three years and admires the Damen's for pioneering the crop in Australia.

DR JON CLEMENTS: Definitely an amazing feat that they were able to get that going from just probably a handful of seed. They're doing it very successfully and it's a great product and they've grown it very well with probably minimal input from any research and so they're definitely pioneers and I think it's fantastic.

(Music)

PIP COURTNEY: The rise and rise of quinoa in the last few years has been extraordinary. It doesn't just feature in recipe books; it's the sole topic of some. It made its biggest headlines this year though, when the UN announced 2013 the International Year of Quinoa.

(Sound of the Damen's packing truck with boxes)

While excited about the UN's decree, it won't impact on the Damen's, other than adding to demand they can't meet.

That's where Western Australian scientist Dr Jon Clements comes in. He's just about to finish a three year project researching which quinoa varieties will grow in Australia and where. With backing from the rural industries research development corporation he's trialling 30 varieties.

(Sound of Dr Jon Clements testing quinoa)

DR JON CLEMENTS: It is exciting working on something new. It is a crop that could fill many niches and I think provide an option for farmers in Australia, but also in other places around the world. And yes, it is unique, it's highly productive, it's got a number of benefits - the salt tolerance and potentially some drought tolerance, high productivity, and of course all the food aspects.

And so, and the fact that it's got this history behind it, in terms of coming from South America for thousands of years, it's a really intriguing plant and rather different to work on than anything that's really currently being worked on.

PIP COURTNEY: Incredibly he's even trialling five varieties of quinoa in the northern tropics. While the hot, dry conditions of Kununurra are very different to Tasmania, the crops have performed well.

DR JON CLEMENTS: The productivity is very good. We expect that the productivity will be greater than rain-fed agriculture down in, say, for example, the wheat belt of Western Australia. It grows very well. At this stage it's looking promising up there. More work to be done and how it fits in rotation with other crops such as, you know, sugar cane and some of the other alternative crops up there. But also the economy of the crop as well. We need to figure out whether it's economically viable to grow it on a large scale.

On the east coast, Dr Clements can see quinoa growing from Queensland down to Tasmania. Interest from farmers is high and he hopes seed will be available next year.

Some WA farmers aren't waiting for his results though.

DR JON CLEMENTS: There's a group, particularly in Narrogin, that are going - in Western Australia - that are starting to grow quite well - go quite well with it. And there are a lot of other interested growers as well who are very keen to get going and, indeed, some are already experimenting as well on their own.

So, we think it is going to take off relatively rapidly over these next few years, particularly with the latest, sort of, publicity around healthy foods, ancient grains, gluten free.

(Music)

PIP COURTNEY: Globally the buzz on quinoa is growing in the plant-breeding world. Dr Clements is just back from an international quinoa symposium in the US.

DR JON CLEMENTS: There was a lot of excitement about its popularity. The UN was represented there and with the International Year of Quinoa this year, there was a lot of talk about fostering research, collaboration and communication over the crop and I think it's looking like it's going to basically develop very quickly over this next decade.

(Spanish being spoken in quiona commercial)

PIP COURTNEY: Peru and Bolivia grow 88 per cent of the world's quinoa.

As they struggle to meet booming demand, the world's farmers are sensing an opportunity to turn a niche crop into a mainstream one.

DR JON CLEMENTS: You will have two products. You will have the organically grown grain and you will have different colours - red, black, white. And then you will have basically the broad acre grown, non-organic crop. And I think there's room in the market for both.

PIP COURTNEY: Dr Clements' work finishes in January, but he's hoping to secure funding for further work.

Back in Tasmania the Damens are flat out, growing and selling quinoa, linseed, buckwheat, spelt, poppies and old-fashioned oats. They say the market in ancient or even old-fashioned grains is small but profitable. Their oats, for instance, have a dedicated following.

(Sound of quiona being put in paper bags)

LAURAN DAMEN: It's an old variety and it is a huskless oat or naked oat, how you call it. And that's got far more flavour in than the average oats out of the supermarket. We control it here to keep the maximum of the flavour still in the bag and the goodness in the bag, of course, because it's almost the same.

PIP COURTNEY: Health food shops that sell their spelt have asked for flour. So, they imported a mill.

(Sound of mill starting up)

LAURAN DAMEN: We were growing spelt, and every year we had stock carried over from one year and over one year and we had also had lots of demands, that people were asking for spelt flour. So, then we took the step instead of, yes, we bought the mill and started milling ourselves also.

HENRIETTE DAMEN: People wanted straight off the farm, I think, yes. To be a farmer is one thing, but to be and a miller and processor and packing, yes, it's a lot to it.

(Music)

PIP COURTNEY: By far the greatest demand though is for quinoa. So they're now trying to get locals to grow for them.

Their punt on a plant with the weird spelling has turned out better than they ever imagined.

LAURAN DAMEN: It was good to take - to try something to get some opportunities.

HENRIETTE DAMEN: He likes to take adventure in a way. He likes to look in other crops, try them out. He likes to do that with machinery. He's just a person to do different things.